Thursday, July 24, 2008

L5R Schools and Avatar Paragon Paths

I will update this post with future ideas instead of creating new posts each time inspiration strikes. If I ever flesh them out properly, then they will receive a new post.

I am not sure whether there should be paragon paths proper for Avatar. These fit really well as prestige classes, may they RIP, but what is there to distinguish between several paths for any given bender? By way of explanation, whether a waterbender focuses on healing, freezing, or cutting should be accomplished through power choice, not a paragon path. Maybe I should render paragon paths down the same as I am rendering classes down for L5R and just have a suite of powers from which a bender chooses at the paragon-appropriate levels. Obviously an assortment of element-specific abilities but also some "bender"-specific ones (that is, abilities that aid a bender of any element in a generic way; if I do so, then the element-specific abilities should really emphasize the element and not be a collection of effects that could be done with any element as I had planned for a generic "bender" class).

Bloodbender (Waterbender): -always-on ability to increase melee AC as the Bb reflexively interferes with the attacker's swing by bending the blood in his arm-obviously a domination effect daily from full-on bloodbending

Agent of the Dai Li (Earthbender):-grasping hands of stone attack power-bonuses to climb and hide as the Dai Li always seemed to attack unseen from above

Lightning Bender (Firebender):-able to create lightning-probably the firejet-based flight powers from Princess Azula and Firelord Ozai(There was a short thread at ENWorld about Avatar. Lightning Bender was the idea offered for a firebender paragon path. I think either this or a Dragon like Iroh would be the best choice. Of course, Iroh made up his unique attacks ...)